Care, maintenance and charging of Bosch e-Bike batteries

Drew

Active Member
I just came across this article about care and maintenance of Bosch batteries:

How to look after and extend the life of your Bosch eBike Battery

It explained a number of things I did not know about the Bosch batteries. Specifically interesting to me were the sections on what constitutes a charge cycle, charging with inverters, the effects of temperature, and battery conditioning.

However, the article is a few years old and now we know the advice to always "top off" your bike battery after a ride is not actually the best practice. For more information on that, see this post in the EBR forums: https://electricbikereview.com/foru...charge-at-a-lower-amperage.22302/#post-135200

Myself, I have adopted the practice of using an inexpensive timer to charge the battery into the 70-80% region. It hasn't taken long to get good at guessing how much charging I need to reach that level. If I have a long ride planned I put the charger on again a couple of hours prior to the ride to fully charge it.

By the way, I inquired of Grin technolgies regarding a Bosch adapter for their Satiator charger, and received the following reply:

Bosch makes their own proprietary plug which we would have to license from them. So the short answer is no we would not be carrying their plug.

You could cut the charger wire from your current Bosch charger and splice it into one of our unterminated Satiator cables. But you have to hack the signal lines to allow for charging current to flow (we tested this ourselves) and even then, the maximum current it allows is 5A.

This sounds like an interesting science project to me, but I'll be waiting for my battery to be out of warranty before I attempt it!
 
Interesting article, but it did not give any information of how to dispose of the old battery when you need to replace it. It said you can't ship it, so how do you get rid of it? Is there somewhere that takes these old batteries for recycling?
 
That website is in the UK so they are referring to UK-specific restrictions.

In the US there are eBike battery rebuilders that have old batteries shipped to them to be rebuilt. On their websites they have specific instructions regarding shipping requirements and procedures. Here is one such company:

https://rechargeablepowerenergy.com/blogs/news/e-bike-battery-replacement-repair-rebuild

That said, there are also ways to find local battery recyclers. Have a look at this site:

https://www.call2recycle.org/

"Call2Recycle has a public drop-off location within 10 miles of more than 87% of people living in the U.S."

I checked my area and within a few miles found a dozen drop-off locations that accept rechargeable batteries (including Lithium Ion) up to 11 pounds. Granted I live in a large city (Seattle) but the locations included a number of national chains (Home Depot, Staples, etc).

Credit is due where credit is deserved: I found out about Call2Recycle via iZip's website - that is where they direct their eBike customers that need to recycle an old battery!

https://izipelectric.com/community/electric-bike-battery-recycling/
 
I just came across this video where Court is interviewing the owner of Grin Technologies. At 26m32s there is specific discussion regarding how to connect a Satiator charger to charge a Bosch battery (it's not very hard!), and what results to expect.

 
I just came across this video where Court is interviewing the owner of Grin Technologies. At 26m32s there is specific discussion regarding how to connect a Satiator charger to charge a Bosch battery (it's not very hard!), and what results to expect.

Thanks Drew, just so happens I have a faulty 2A charger with a Bosch plug on the end of it.
But i'll probably be waiting until the warranty ends to start experimenting...
 
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